The last couple of weeks has been confusing for owners of AirTags who like to travel with them. Lufthansa appeared to ban them from checked luggage. However, following regulatory advice, they unbanned them, saying they posed no risk to aircraft. With this in mind, Simple Flying decided to put them to the test, tracking our baggage on a connecting itinerary through the airline's Munich hub.
AirTags in action
Flying on the inaugural Lufthansa Boeing 787 flight from Frankfurt to Munich gave me a chance to really put my AirTag to the test for the first time since acquiring it during the summer of baggage chaos. I was only traveling with a small rucksack and a carryon sized suitcase, so I could've avoided checked luggage altogether. However, I wished to take a liquid container larger than 100ml home, which wouldn't have been possible with hand luggage.
This itinerary stood out from others for one simple reason. I was connecting onto a London Heathrow flight after I arrived at Munich Airport. My transit time was roughly eight hours, leading to the slight worry that my bag could be put to one side and forgotten for the onward flight.
As covered in my flight review, I dropped my suitcase at the self-check-in facility in Frankfurt Airport's Terminal 1. The first positive sign was that the bag tag printed showed LHR via MUC, as did my baggage receipt. Shortly after leaving my bag, a notification popped up on my iPhone,
"Tom's Luggage left behind. This item is no longer detected near you. It was last seen near Frankfurt Airport"
Always there but not on me
At various points, as my bag passed ground workers with iPhones, I saw my bag slowly move toward the gate. As a portion of the airport's baggage system is automated, there were times when the bag's status was "Last seen 10 minutes ago at XYZ". By contrast, Lufthansa's baggage tracking system only shows when ground agents load a bag onto a flight.
As I was boarding the flight to Munich, I noted that an iPhone had tracked my bag on the same stand as me. However, its signal wasn't strong enough to reach my iPhone on the aircraft itself. I trusted that the bag had made it onto the flight. My trust paid off. After I had left the plane, I booted up the Find My app and saw that the bag had been detected in Munich. My bag had made it between Lufthansa's two largest hubs.
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While on the ground in Munich, I largely forgot about my bag. Mid-way through my 8-hour layover, I checked in on the AirTag to ensure it hadn't accidentally made it to the baggage belt and had been taken by mistake. My irrational fears were quickly eased as the Find My App showed that the bag was underneath a parking lot, presumably in an underground baggage storage facility. However, it had last been seen 53 minutes ago.
En route to Heathrow
While waiting for my delayed connection to London Heathrow, I rechecked the app and saw that my bag was on the move. Good news! They clearly hadn't forgotten it in a corner.
I didn't see my bag being loaded, though once I took my seat on the aircraft, I booted up the app once more to see the words "With You" underneath Tom's Luggage. My bag was onboard the plane and close enough that it was talking to my iPhone. Given that I was in row 5 of an Airbus A320neo, ground handlers presumably loaded it in the forward baggage hold.
My bag had indeed made it onto the plane, as once I disabled Airplane Mode at London Heathrow, I could see that my luggage was still "with me". Interestingly, my bag "remained" at the gate right until it connected with my phone on the baggage reclaim belt. This suggests that the baggage handler didn't have an iPhone and shows that while the system can be helpful, it's not perfect.
Have you used an AirTag in your luggage? How did you find the experience? Let us know what you think and why in the comments below!